Re: City Struggles to Remove Condemned Houses; Asks State for Help

[Is Obama Behind The Biden Curtain?]

In article <sh5qsl$7bt$3...@news.dns-netz.com>
socialists <demo...@nytimes.com> wrote:
>
> ...Biden is done, stick a fork in him.

Shades of Obama's economic incompetence. Flash forward to Joe
Biden in 2022. The stench of Obama is everywhere.

The cost of demolishing condemned properties in Milwaukee is
squeezing city finances. So this week, leaders will ask the
state for more aid to combat the problem. It grows bigger by the
day. We took a first hand look.

Huge metal teeth bite into the second story of a house on North
26th Street. Moments later, support beams crack and the walls
fold. Finally, the roof collapses. Perhaps that’s an apt
metaphor for the effects of the recent economic downturn. The
recession caused the roof to fall in on many homeowners.
Hundreds, unable to make monthly payments, abandoned their homes.

"In many of our neighborhoods once those buildings no longer
have a person living in them that seems to be a green light for
opening the door for criminal activity," according to Art
Dahlberg, commissioner of Milwaukee’s Department of Neighborhood
Services. It hustles to secure properties – board up the windows
and lock the doors, as soon as they’re vacant, but other
visitors often arrive first. Dahlberg says it’s amazing how
quickly empty houses attract “scrappers” –slang for renegade
recyclers who illegally rip out anything of value.

" What they do is they come in there looking for all copper, all
of the electrical, sometimes the electricity hasn't even been
turned off yet. The water may still be on as they’re cutting
plumbing out, so that creates a pool of water in the basement
that fills the house with humidity that causes all of the
plaster to start dropping, causes all of the floors to buckle,
and then when you look at how much it costs to repair that
property, it’s not an economic viable alternative," Dahlberg
says.

Dahlberg says ruined houses victimize the neighborhood. In
addition to hurting property values, they often attract criminal
activities – drug dealing and arson, spreading fear among those
living nearby.

From his front porch on North 30th Street, Raymond Moody saw
people strip a pair of vacant houses. Afterwards, he says people
took up residence in them, despite their decrepit condition.

"Unfortunately, some homeless people was squatting and they were
just looking for shelter. They didn’t really care if it had any
utilities or working water or things like that. It was sad. You
know you pray for yourself but you also pray for others, but it
was sad," Moody says.

He says he was also frightened.

"Because you don’t know what might happen, fire or something,
then that would put my property in immediate danger," Moody says.

Moody says he lobbied for three years, and finally the city had
the resources to clear the lots. Now he hopes they attract new
housing. In the meantime, Moody has posted a sign in his yard,
identifying himself as “block captain.” He reaches out to
neighbors to try to strengthen their street.

"You know, we’re put here to serve a purpose, what is your
purpose. I feel in my heart, I pray that I know that mine’s is
to serve society, you know, make the world a better place,"
Moody says.

That kind of community activism is not always visible.

In his recent State of the City address, Mayor Tom Barrett said
the foreclosure crisis has hit three areas particularly hard:
the Washington Park, Amani, and Metcalfe Park neighborhoods and
affected everyone living there.

"These neighborhoods are just two percent of the city’s land
area, but in 2012, 13 percent of the city’s violent crime and
eight percent of all crime were committed in these three
neighborhoods," Barrett says.

The city recently received a pair of federal grants to pay for
increased policing and code enforcement in those areas. Still
Milwaukee needs $7.5 million to remove their boarded up
properties. Jennifer Gonda directs intergovernmental relations
for the city. Today, she and other local officials will detail
the scope of the problem for the Legislature’s Joint Finance
Committee.

"When we start to give them the numbers that we have 8,000
vacant or foreclosed homes right now in the city, that’s really
a very impact number. The bottom line for us is that this takes
resources. It’s an issue that the city did not bring on itself,
and it’s very difficult in times of levy limits and declining
shared revenues for us to come up with the dollars to pay for
it," Gonda says.

The city will request $750,000 state dollars over three years to
remove 150 severely blighted properties in the hardest hit
neighborhoods. Gonda predicts their crime rates will then fall,
proving the state investment was wise. While the state considers
Milwaukee’s request, Art Dahlberg of the Department of
Neighborhood Services says it will continue working to intervene
at earlier stages.

"Last year we did 50,000 inspections of vacant or foreclosed
properties. We are constantly dealing with the lending
institutions, the investors that are holding the properties,
it’s a wide mix. We don’t want to be talking about just
neighborhood after neighborhood being clear cut," Dahlberg says.

If the city can secure abandoned properties so they remain
livable, they won’t be added to the list of hundreds awaiting
demolition and destabilizing neighborhoods.

https://www.wuwm.com/regional/2013-03-08/city-struggles-to-
remove-condemned-houses-asks-state-for-help